


Ranma, Kasumi, and the Mice at Work in the Garden

by ap_aelfwine



Category: Ranma 1/2
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-30
Updated: 2009-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 10:16:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ap_aelfwine/pseuds/ap_aelfwine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a quiet and peaceful Nerima, Ranma is happily married to Kasumi, Ukyou, and Kodachi.<br/>Practicing forms in the garden one day, he discovers that mice, at least some of them, have grander projects than stealing cheese and nuts from the pantry.<br/>For that matter, their manners are excellent and their handwriting is beautiful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ranma, Kasumi, and the Mice at Work in the Garden

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as my response to [](http://wsr.livejournal.com/profile)[**wsr**](http://wsr.livejournal.com/)'s [request](http://ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com/137244.html?thread=366364#t366364) in the [Drabble Me Meme](http://ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com/137244.html), but I felt as if it needed something more, so here it is, expanded by 250 words or so. Enjoy!

Ranma, Kasumi, and the Mice at Work in the Garden (soft R, 970 words)  
A Ranma 1/2 fanfic by Andrew yclept Aelfwine  
#  
The characters and situations of Ranma 1/2 are copyright Takahashi Rumiko and the appropriate publishers. They may not be used or reproduced commercially without permission. The use of these characters and situations is not to be construed as challenge to said copyright. They are merely borrowed for this work of non-commercial fanfiction, from which the author derives no financial benefit.  
#  
Warnings: civilised mice, suggestive situations (all human--the mice are too busy with their work)  
###  
It was a quiet day in Nerima. That wasn't as unusual as it had once been.

The change had all started when Akane eloped with Ryouga and Akari. Almost immediately afterwards, Kunou Tatewaki had come out, moved to San Francisco with a hunky foreign exchange student, and traded on his good looks and samurai heritage to build a career as kendo instructor to the stars.

Kasumi had done her family duty and married Ranma, and duty had quickly turned to love. A few quiet conversations with Kodachi, culminating with Kodachi crying her eyes out on Kasumi's shoulder, had led first to a series of three-person dates and then to the Kunou daughter becoming part of their household. Kuonji Ukyou had followed her, and the happy foursome had settled down, pursuing home-based careers--Ranma and Kodachi teaching martial arts, Kasumi teaching flower-arranging and etiquette, and Ukyou finding success as a writer of everything from sentimental children's fiction to sizzling action-romances.

Their eldest children were four and five, still too young for throwing their father into the pond or tearing up the street with their rivals. This particular day, they were at the zoo with all three of their grandparents; Nodoka thought three wives more than compensated, in terms of manliness, for her son's alternating gender identity, and had welcomed both her husband and his boyfriend, Tendou Soun, back to her bed. So, Ranma was practising his forms alone in the garden when, quite unexpectedly, a stream of water hit him in the face.

She spluttered and looked about. There were no little old ladies with buckets and ladles. There were no mischievous spice with squirtguns. There were only six or eight mice, gathered round the nozzle of a garden hose like a gun crew round a tiny cannon. She knelt to look closer. One wore a red sash, presumably a badge of rank. He, or possibly she, squeaked something that sounded a bit like "Please excuse our mistake!" and the group bowed deeply.

Ranma, feeling slightly dazed, said "No worries, guys. Happens all the time." The mice waved and went back to their task, which appeared to be washing off the old refrigerator Kasumi had replaced last week.

Ranma went inside for a towel. Kasumi was sitting in the main room with a cup of tea and the household mending. For a moment, Ranma forgot both mice and towel, lost in contemplation of just how remarkable a thing it was that her senior wife could look _that_ demure and innocent, despite being the person who, just last night, had used a strap-on to do things with her co-wives and _both_ her husband's forms which even the most demented hentai manga artists had never imagined.

A ladylike giggle, and Kasumi's raised eyebrow, broke her reverie. "Ah... Excuse me, Kasumi," Ranma said, "but why is the old refrigerator in the garden?"

"The mice asked me if they could have it," Kasumi said. "It seemed the polite thing to do, especially since it saves us the bother of getting rid of it"

"Oh," said Ranma. "Do you know what they're doing with it?"

"Cleaning it off, to start" Kasumi said. "I believe that once they're done with that they'll build in the decks and compartments. Then they'll put in the normal-space drives, life support systems, controls, that sort of thing. If I understand them correctly, they need vacuum to install the jump drives, so they'll wait till they orbit her to put those in."

"Oh," Ranma said. "Okay." Then something sank in. "Did you say they're turning our old refrigerator into a spaceship?"

"A starship, actually, my dear. If all goes as planned, she should be able to make the Sol-Alpha Centauri run in about four days sidereal. Their clan hasn't had a starship of its own in two generations, you see, so they'll be so very happy to get back to their proper trade."

"That's good," Ranma said. "I'm happy for them. But... wait a minute, love. Don't they launch spaceships with rockets? Rockets in our garden? Even if they're only little ones, that doesn't sound good."

"I asked about that," Kasumi said. "They said 'Only amateurs launch a ship with rockets. Real spacers use antigravs.' Well, what they actually said was a bit more flowery, not to mention polite, but that was the gist of it. Launch day should be about six weeks from now, depending how long it takes them to source the rare earth elements and the molybdenum sporks."

"Okay... Um, how do you talk with them? Did your grandmother teach you a secret method for communicating with small animals?"

Kasumi laughed. "Oh, no. Most of the sounds they can make are too high for human beings to hear, so they write me notes. Here, would you like to see one?" Kasumi gave him an index card. Ranma squinted at what appeared to be a collection of lines and dots and tiny squiggles.

"Here," Kasumi said, handing him a powerful magnifier.

"Thanks, love. Umm... 'To the honourable lady Saotome Kasumi, our well-respected ally, we of the clan Squeak-Squeak-Peep send our most sincere greetings...'" The handwriting was beautiful.

"Yes," Kasumi said. "They're very old-fashioned, in their way. Dear little people, and very polite. They say they'll probably keep some groundside facilities here beneath the house, with our permission, to deal with the Terran trade. I'm glad of that--they've been very helpful about keeping the more primitive sorts of mice away." Kasumi stretched, letting her yukata slip open, showing the edges of both areolae and a hint of one nipple.

Sweat dripped off Ranma's brow and trickled down her spine. "Umm, sure. That's fine."

"Good," Kasumi said. "And now that's settled, would my honourable lord and husband care to claim her conjugal rights?"

"Yes," Ranma managed to say, despite a throat gone suddenly dry.

And Kasumi pounced.


End file.
